The need has arisen to put words to what is that I do. And more importantly, why.
It is one thing to use flashy words as a headliner, but it is another to understand that words are mere constructs of etymological history and modern connotation. Of course I can’t use an essay of 2000 words as subtitle, that’s marketing 101 for you. But you can’t expect either that your words will be understood as you intended them. So today, especially for you, dear reader, I present to you: Nuance.
Why on earth would I choose to combine Kundalini Yoga and Paganism as a red thread in all that I offer?
Yoga as a «detour»
Over a hundred years ago, the practice, traditions and lifestyle of Yoga, found its way to the west. At a time where these western societies had lost most of their connection to the rich spirituality of the land and their ancestors.
The wave of Christianity had washed over Europe and from there founds its way to the rest of the world. The flood left very little spiritual wisdom alive. Banned, forbidden, burned, beaten and re-educated. We were left cut off from the very soil and memories under our feet.
Just thinking about this evokes such a deep anger in me. All the wisdom and ways we should have learned from our grandmothers, gone. Even in school, where we learn about "religions of the world", we were told nothing about our very own ancestral spirituality.
Until so many of us started waking up again. Feeling deep in that empty hole in our chest, barely able to know what was supposed to be in there. Having lost our own connection and spiritual traditions, the people of the west got pulled to any world-spirituality still alive. Many found it in the east. In the thousands year old tradition that we slumped under the name "Yoga". It found us right at that time when we started looking for what we were missing.
Kundalini Yoga
Of all rememberings I carry in my being, by far the most practical and useful is that of "Kundalini Yoga".
By using the practises, tools and techniques of these schools, I use a living spiritual tradition which has such an enormous library of information and such a rich technology, to widen my bandwidth, make space in my own channels. Opening channels and streams within my own vessel, so that I can became sensitive enough to remember the ways we used to work with the same energies here in Europe.
The way in which this specific eastern school, has defined the energy system of our body, resonates deeply with me. The way in which "it just fits" as a guide through the rhythms of nature, gives me the chills.
To practice Kundalini Yoga is a "detour" for me. The necessary long route that I must take. An opportunity I'm grateful for. To walk outside the lines of identification. To have found back to power of the voice and to chant and sing in group.
Paganism
The broad definition of a pagan is of someone whose religion is not Judaism, Islam, or especially Christianity.
The Latin source of the word, “paganus”, originally meant “country dweller” or “civilian”. A term used at the end of the Roman Empire to refer to people who practiced a religion other than Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, and especially to those who worshiped multiple deities.
Am I a pagan? Kind of, yes.
Am I a re-enactor? No.
Am I a spiritual re-enactor? Absolutely not.
My goal is not to recreate things exactly as how were in history (with the limited sources we have). My goal is to remember and work with a broad sense of ancestry and the very soil under my feet.
It's a path that is unique to me. A path that undoubtedly will turn and twist in the future.
And in that uniqueness, I encourage you to find your own voice as well, as long as you walk with respect.
Does that include working with deities? Yes. It includes working with all kinds of nature-beings, elemental forces, archetypes and the personification of complicated concepts that are deities.
Animism
"The belief that spirits exist throughout nature". Animism refers to the belief that all objects, places and physical existence are transcended by a spiritual presence.
The Indo-European root of the word “ane”, means “to breathe”. From there, the meaning grew over time and branched into different languages, resulting in meanings of “wind”, “consciousness”, “living being”, “spirit”, “breath” and “soul”.
Being an animist means that you perceive all things – humans, animals, plants, rocks, rivers, human handiwork, words, names, mantra, etc. – to have spirit and therefor free will.
It is a very metaphysical belief system that is so widespread through all original spiritualism in all corners of the world, that it could be argued to be “the first religion”, even though I see religion and spirituality as 2 very different things, especially with in today’s society.
Am I an animist? Most definitely yes!
I recognise out place in the sacred pattern that is consciousness. The memories are in the soil, ancestry and future.
As the wheel of the year turns and the seasons shift, there's no better time to tap into the essence of your being and reconnect. The energetic rhythms of nature are sacredly reflected in us.
World Spirituality
In many ways, we were cut off from our own source, here in the West. And we see the result in the way in which many westerners have been flocking to mainly India and South America for an empty-hole-in-my-chest-fix.
Our colonist ancestors have spread waves of horror over the whole planet. And now we run to those very places for our own healing. We need their medicine and the very wisdom our ancestors tried to uproot.
We died somewhere in our own history. Brought this dead to all corners around the world. And now we draw to those very corners to be reborn.
But when does that change into appropriation? There are so many opinions and perspectives on this. But to me, it's all about the intention. What is it we want with something? What is it want to achieve? And on that journey, do we take a position of understanding of the why and purpose of what it is we are using? Do we acknowledge the origins of the tool or technique we are using? Are we selling something we have no real understanding of?
Simply said: Is you doing or using this thing causing embarrassment to where the tool or technique most recently originated?
That being said, and maybe in contradiction of it, I do believe in the power of channelling and drawing from the living traditions of World to reconnect with the practices and magic of European traditions.
There are so many similarities throughout the different branches of spiritual practice the world knows, many different ways and names to work with the same energies.
I do see it as a bit of a narrow-sighted mistake to see the world as a collection of static circles of culture. We are and always have been travellers. We are and always have been multicultural. Culture and tradition has travelled together with ethnicity in countless human migration periods. Their spiritual worldview has travelled with them.
Read anything about Indo-European history. Notice the similarities, how spiritual views and culture has grown like branches on a tree, all connected to the same roots. How astrological events have been caught in stone constructions all over the world. How Cernunnos, a Celtic god, resembles the Hindu God Lord Shiva in his Pashupati form. How Tyr and Zeus are two leaves on the same branch.
From the perspective of the receiving lands and people of western colonisation and Christian warfare, I understand why we want to safeguard the sacred tools and techniques, that have survived until the present day.
I pray that we learn to see spiritualty as water again. Flowing and filling any possible shape on its never-ending journey around the world.
I pray that the world shows a compassion to the truth seekers of the west. That we can sail all branches of mother river, to eventually, hopefully, find our way home again. So that we can teach a remembering to the next generation.
For me, to work with these different branches, is a matter of widening my bandwidth. Opening channels and streams within my own vessel, so that I can became sensitive enough to smell the waters deep under my feet.
I pray that we are forgiven our detour.
One People
I know how appropriative it sounds, but to me it's not a matter of this practice belongs to them and this practice belongs to those. We are not the owners of anything. We are the guardians.
I am less concerned about the tools and more about what these tools are used for.
It's about the energetic rhythms of nature, sacredly reflected in us.
I would love to see how we can complement each other and use each other technologies to remember that what is forgotten, like we are one people of the earth.
It doesn't matter where you come from, where your ancestry lies, or on which soil you live. There are so many ways of working with the same energy-patterns that influence our whole planet.
It is not about the tools, it’s about the intention, about reading into the under-currents.
It is to you to choose your path.
So yes, I combine Kundalini Yoga and Celtic/Norse paganism and animism.
Even though I see those "names" as mere constructs to a much deeper and nuanced definition.
My dream is that one day in the future, we will live in a society that understand that we are nature.
That we can live alongside the same rhythms.
That we will follow the moon and sun.
That we, once again, will celebrate the turning of the seasons, instead of “Easter” and “Christmas”.
That we will understand how differently we are in summer and in winter. That we will move away from a forced summer-productivity year-round.
Storytime
I want to end this long explanation with a story.
There is nothing in the world I like better than a good metaphor.
Once upon a time there was a world where all its people were digging for water.
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